Nationals Bound!

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Less than 2 years ago I decided to try (ice) Speedskating...nothing like starting a new sport at the age of 40! I'd never even been on a pair of ice skates prior to that. Last year I made it to 5 competitions, and had some decent results.

During the offseason (April ~ August) I was training really hard to improve for this season, and had a long term goal to qualify for Nationals in March. I even went to a week long advanced training camp at the U.S. Olympic training facilities up in Milwaukee this summer. Based on my times, I figured it would be January or February before I would qualify.

My first race was in Rochester, NY a few weeks ago, and I set personal bests in all distances. In my 1000m race, I knocked 2 seconds off of my best time last March.

2 weeks later I entered in my second race of the season, and knocked another 5 seconds off and beat the Nationals qualifying time by .2 seconds! I also got my first overall win, and set personal records in 2 of the 4 distances.

So...the 2nd race of my 2nd year in Speedskating I qualified for Nationals. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited for sure.

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These are my skates. 17" blades, and carbon fiber shell boots that are fully heat moldable. The blades are fully adjustable depending on offset you want, and they are custom bent based on my needs (speedskating blades are bent to the left).

This sport can be expensive...boots run from about $250 ~$2000, and blades run from about $250 ~ $500. And then there's sharpening equipment, kevlar anti-cut apparel, etc, etc, etc.

[ramtough]

Cool way to go I wish I had the time.